


Message in a Bottle

by Heart_of_Targness



Category: Fate/Grand Order
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Septem Singularity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 14:53:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13033506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heart_of_Targness/pseuds/Heart_of_Targness
Summary: Just because the world is ending doesn't mean you shouldn't dream big.





	Message in a Bottle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Laylah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laylah/gifts).



Caster found Rider on a beach in Portugal. His beast of a war horse shot a disdainful look at Caster’s clumsy attempts to dismount from the most placid gelding they could find for him in the United Empire’s stables (sharing a body with an ancient Chinese warlord did not translate to more than a theoretical knowledge of riding, and Caster himself was a 20th century city boy through and through) before going back to grazing on the scraggly vegetation. The boy himself stood with the Atlantic’s waves lapping at his sandals, staring out at the horizon. He must have heard the other Servant approach, but paid him no mind.  
  
Caster went to stand beside him. His shoes would get wet, but what of it? "Playing hooky now, are you?"  
  
Rider finally looked away from the ocean and acknowledged Caster's presence with a sheepish look. "Ah, sorry Professor, is it time to invade Gaul already? I thought I would have a couple of days for myself."  
  
Caster regularly saw the same look on the faces of his students when they forgot to hand in their homework on time. Some things, it seemed, were simply universal. "No, it’s not time to march yet. I give it another week or two before the Emperor has his army sorted out the way he wants it." Useless as an army would be with Servants on the battlefield.  
  
"Oh, that’s a relief. I didn’t want to cause trouble! I just really wanted to come out here before we left. I’ve never been this far out West before, you know?" He gestured to indicate the sandy beach and the water. Caster nodded; he did indeed know. Rider’s expressive face grew wistful. "I wanted to see the ocean just once, even though Okeanos isn’t real."  
  
Well, this was new. "How so?"  
  
"I remember the Holy Grail War I was - I mean, that we were in, when I was older and you were younger. It’s mostly very vague, but I do remember seeing a map of the world, and it was very different from what I was taught."  
  
"Hm, yes, Anaximander's world map was a marvel, but it did make some mistaken assumptions." He thought he saw the problem now. _The human psyche is strange; at thirty-three, this same revelation only spurred him on. Oh well, right now he is still only a teenager._ He sat down carefully on the sand, and gestured for the boy to do the same. "But, Rider, you never struck me as the overly literal type. It’s true that there isn’t one body of water called ‘Okeanos’ encircling the three continents. And there are more than three continents, anyway. But in the end, it’s all the same water, you know. People can hop on a boat and circumnavigate the entire planet without ever seeing land. There’s even a race where people do just that; it’s considered the greatest test of a sailor’s mettle. Does it really matter that instead of one big ocean, cartographers have broken it down into Atlantic, Pacific, Arctic and so on?"  
  
"I suppose not." The boy seemed to shed a bit of his uncharacteristic melancholy and looked out at the waves with renewed interest.  
  
"So really, you are looking at the ocean that encircles the world right now. We could throw a bottle into the sea here in Lusitania, and I bet the currents will have carried it to a beach in China by the time we get there."  
  
Surprise got rid of the rest of Rider's melancholy. "Haha, you’re so funny, Professor! We’ll be going to China?"  
  
"Of course," Caster told him seriously. "Don't forget, I _know you_. Please don’t try to tell me you feel an overwhelming urge to serve our Emperor. You want to conquer the world for yourself!"  
  
"Ah, well, that’s true, but… the logistics… And I don’t even have an army of my own!"  
  
_How guileless_ , Caster thought. _And how like Rider… another might balk at the task, but there is no doubt in his mind he could do it given the right tools… They do say 'the child is the father of the man'._ Out loud, he said only, "You’re _you_ , idiot. If you don’t have an army now, you’ll have one by the time you reach Asia Minor, I‘m sure. Perhaps even earlier. Such is the curse of a magnetic personality. Case in point: I said 'we', and you didn't protest _that_ part. You take it for granted that men follow you."  
  
"Ahaha, I guess that's true! But you don't mind, right? Going to the other side of the world with me?"  
  
_You're my King, somewhere in there. I'd follow you to hell itself._ But that wasn't the kind of thing one said to teenage kings if one one didn't want their ego to swell to unmanageable proportions come adulthood. "I'm not exactly enthused by the United Roman Empire myself, so no, I wouldn't mind a change of scenery."  
  
"Oh, that's good. I really like you. And I think I could learn a lot from you, so I'm glad you'll be coming with me when I leave. I do still want to talk to Emperor Nero before that, though."  
  
"And I’ll give you the opportunity, as promised. But after that, I suggest we leave the two Romes to duke it out and begin our march East." It was perhaps unusually reckless of Caster to throw himself so wholeheartedly into plans of world conquest. Normally, he might have balked at the damage to the timeline… But the damage had already been done. Humanity was destroyed, and soon the singularity they were trapped in would collapse too. And so, if these were their last days, why not spend them getting the boy closer to his dream? (This boy, who was his future king...)  
  
"Yes! This is going to be so interesting! Just you, me and my Bukephalos against the world, I can’t wait!" The familiar exuberant grin the boy shot him as he punched the air would have alarmed Caster once upon a time; now he merely smiled back in fond nostalgia.  
  
"I just have one question, Professor!"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Why would we throw a bottle into the ocean?"  
  
"Hum, well, the idea is to write a message, seal it into a bottle and throw the bottle into the sea in the hope that someone will find it."  
  
"Do people really do that?" Rider asked dubiously.  
  
"In fiction they do. Mostly it’s shipwrecked sailors writing down the coordinates of the desert island they washed up on. To be honest, I don’t know if it would actually work in real life."  
  
The response was immediate and expected: "Then we should find out!"  
  
"Ah, I don’t know. We shouldn’t litter…"  
  
But in the end, Rider had his way, as he always did. They shared a bottle of Falernian as they quietly watched the endless blue sea. When all the wine was gone, Caster fished a ballpoint pen out of his suit pocket, and they wrote their message on the back of an old parchment carrying a list of supplies for the Second Legion. Caster used a bit of magic to make the seal waterproof, then Rider took the bottle and threw it as far as he could. It bobbed on the surface for a while before vanishing from their sight.  
  
"We should go back to the Capital before we’re missed," Caster said finally.  
  
"Yes," Rider sighed. "The sooner we face Nero, the sooner we can be on our way."  
  
Together, they rode off to face their destiny. In the doomed singularity, the currents carried their message to a distant shore:  
  
_Dear Future Selves,_  
_What took you so long?_  
_Love,_  
_Your past selves,_  
_Alexander of Macedonia_  
_Waver Velvet, Lord El Melloi II_  
  
**End**


End file.
